Arresting Evidence: Domestic Violence and Repeat Victimisation

Jalna Hanmer Sue Griffiths David Jerwood Arresting Evidence: Domestic Violence and Repeat Victimisation

Jalna Hanmer Sue Griffiths David Jerwood

Editor: Barry Webb Home Office Policing and Reducing Crime Unit Research, Development and Statistics Directorate 50 Queen Anne’s Gate London SW1H 9AT Policing and Reducing Crime Unit: Police Research Series

The Policing and Reducing Crime Unit (PRC) was formed in 1998 as a result of the merger of the Police Research Group (PRG) and the Research and Statistics Directorate. PRC Unit is now part of the Research, Development and Statistics Directorate of the Home Office. The PRC Unit carries out and commissions research in the social and management sciences on policing and crime reduction, broadening out the role that PRG played.

The PRC has now combined PRG’s two main series into the Police Research Series, continuing PRG’s earlier work. This will present research material on crime prevention and detection as well as police management and organisation issues.

Research commissioned by PRG will appear as a PRC publication. Throughout the text there may be references to PRG and these now need to be understood as relating to the PRC Unit.

ISBN 1-84082-241-4

Copies of this publication can be made available in formats accessible to the visually impaired on request. Foreword

This project is part of a continuing programme of research and development on repeat victimisation. The scope for reducing crime by focusing on victims is now well established. Previous research has demonstrated how adopting a graded response can make a real impact on repeat property crime. This project develops the approach by applying the graded response to domestic violence, where repeat offending is a common occurrence.

An extended briefing note was published in April 1998 describing the project and setting out the findings from the first six months. This report presents an evaluation of the first full year, and discusses the operational issues involved in implementing and monitoring such initiatives. Its account of the lessons to be learned from the Killingbeck experience should help the new crime and disorder partnerships in developing their local strategies.

John Lyon Director of Police Policy Home Office April 1999 Acknowledgements

We are grateful for the shared vision of Cllr. Tom Brennan, Chair of the West Yorkshire Police Authority and Deputy Chief Constable Tom Cook who made this project possible through financial support in its early stages.

We thank the Project Group for their commitment and assistance in introducing the domestic violence repeat victimisation project into the Killingbeck Division of the West Yorkshire Police: Inspector Dave Anderson, Inspector Stuart Burton, DCI Don Harrington, Detective Supt. Max McLean, Inspector Steve Maher, Sergeant Helen Dover, WPC Jane Warnes.

We thank Catherine Lowe for clerical assistance, Inspector Bill Shackleton for training all officers in the Division, Paul Duncan for computing assistance, and Killingbeck Division Supt. Adrian Ward and Supt. Brian Taylor for their welcome support.

This project required the co-operation of all officers in the Killingbeck Division and we thank them for their participation in implementing a new model of work. We also thank other criminal justice, social welfare, statutory and voluntary agencies for their commitment and involvement.

We wish to acknowledge the supporting role played by Rizam Abu Bakar in the innovative work on multivariate survival analysis for split populations, and the back-up work of research assistant Val Balding.

And finally, we thank Cressy Bridgeman, Policing and Reducing Crime Unit, for her invaluable assistance throughout the project and for her comments on earlier drafts of this report.

The Authors

Jalna Hanmer is Professor of Women’s Studies and Director of the Research Centre on Violence Abuse and Gender Relations, Leeds Metropolitan University.

Sue Griffiths is Assistant Director in the Research Centre on Violence Abuse and Gender Relations, Leeds Metropolitan University.

David Jerwood is Senior Lecturer in Statistics and Head of Mathematics, School of Computing and Mathematics, University of Bradford.

PRC would like to thank Professor Frances Heidensohn of Goldsmiths College, University of London for acting as an independent assessor for this report. Executive summary

The Domestic Violence and Repeat Victimisation project was commissioned as part of the Home Office Police Research Group’s (now Policing and Reducing Crime Unit) programme on repeat victimisation. The project arose out of earlier research and policy development on policing domestic violence and the early stages of this present project were financed by the West Yorkshire Police. The new operational procedures and their evaluation were carried out during January through December 1997, in the Killingbeck Division of West Yorkshire Police in Leeds.

The aim of this present project was to reduce repeat victimisation through a three-tiered programme of operational interventions. It required an equal focus on the victimised woman and the offending man in order to set up an interactive crime prevention approach that both protected the victim and demotivated the offender. The programme required all the officers at Killingbeck to implement the Force policy on domestic violence; that is, to proceed pro-actively and to ensure the safety of the victim, along with closer inter-agency involvement with organisations supporting victims and with those that respond to offenders.

While repeat victimisation projects can be organised in many ways, the task was to establish a resource limited operational model with increasing levels of intervention based on re-attendance by police officers. In terms of new resources, the programme required the appointment of two domestic violence officers and a clerk. As multiple attendances to men and women increased, limited additional tasks were required from the Beat Managers (community constables) and patrol officers.

The domestic violence database on police attendances, set up in West Yorkshire in 1989, provided a pre-project sample for comparative purposes and a history on men and women attended in the previous eight years. Repeat victimisation projects require extensive and accurate databases. Developing a recording system and establishing the accuracy of prior recording of attendance led to a focus on what is required operationally to achieve this level of perfection. Over time the recording rate increased from 50% to 80%, the maximum that could be achieved with a separate entry computer programme database.

The demonstration year has established the success of the programme. This cost effective three-tiered programme both reduced repeat attendances and increased the time intervals between attendances by responding more appropriately in domestic settings, both to men who required firm action from the police and to women who required their assistance. Women and their supporters were encouraged to ask for police support through interventions at each level. The

1 The research by Jalna Hanmer and Sheila Saunders, Women, Violence and Crime Prevention, West Yorkshire Police Authority 1987 led to significant policy changes in West Yorkshire policing of domestic violence. This report was published by Gower in 1993. programme enabled chronic repeat offenders to be identified, individually assessed and, over the year of the project, for their numbers to be reduced. Important developments in the statistical analysis of domestic violence repeat victimisation were the identification of factors reducing or increasing offenders and the proportion likely to re-offend in the future.

The main achievements of the project are both programmatic and organisational.

A. Intervention achievements

- reduced repeat victimisation by early intervention:
  - the proportion of attendances that were one-off increased from 66% to 85%
  - the time interval between attendances increased to over one year for 50% of men;
- systematically identified chronic offenders;
- reduced number of chronic offenders;
- encouraged women to ask for assistance;
- encouraged the supporters of women to seek assistance for her;
- identified factors associated and not associated with repeat victimisation;
- established who is at risk of requiring repeat attendance; and,
- began career profiling of men.

B. Organisational achievements

- involved all officers in the Division;
- required few additional resources;
- established the accuracy of recording domestic violence;
- developed recording categories for domestic violence;
- positive impact on uneven service delivery to victims and offenders;
- equal policing attention on victim safety and demotivating the offender; and,
- improved agency communication and inter-agency co-operation.

## Contents

| Section | Page | |------------------------------------------------------------------------|------| | Foreword | (iii) | | Acknowledgements | (iv) | | Executive summary | (v) | | List of tables | (ix) | | List of figures | (ix) | | 1. Background to the project | 1 | | Principles of the model | 2 | | Project objectives | 3 | | The model | 3 | | Major operational elements | 5 | | The research | 7 | | Structure of the report | 7 | | 2. How did the model operate in practice? | 9 | | Identifying repeat offenders | 9 | | Allocation of intervention levels | 10 | | Training of officers and day-to-day management | 11 | | Operation of the project | 12 | | Management through monitoring and recording | 20 | | Establishing the accuracy of recording of repeat victimisation | 21 | | Overview of organisational achievements | 22 | | 3. Does the model work? | 23 | | Did the model reduce repeat attendance? | 23 | | With whom did the model work? | 29 | | Does women leaving make a difference? | 31 | | 4. Impact of the model on providers and users | 33 | | Police | 33 | | Agencies | 35 | | Women | 36 | 5. Why does the model work?\
Overview of the programme achievements 40 Future directions in research 42

References 44

Appendices 45

1. Recording domestic violence attendances 45
2. Developments in statistical analysis 48
3. Factors in domestic violence career profiling and risk assessment 51

Recent publications 54 List of tables

| Table No. | Caption | Page | |-----------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------|------| | 1. | Arrest and outcomes by entry level January-December 1997 | 13 | | 2. | Beat Manager visits and Cocoon Watch January-June 1997 | 16 | | 3. | Beat Manager visits and Cocoon Watch July-December 1997 | 17 | | 4. | Police Watch by intervention level, January-June 1997 | 18 | | 5. | Police Watch by intervention level, July-December 1997 | 18 | | 6. | Probabilities of complete records at 50% recording reliability | 21 | | 7. | Entry level of men by quarterly time periods | 23 | | 8. | Repeat attendance to men by entry level January-December 1997 | 25 | | 9. | Living arrangements by entry level at first attendance | 31 | | 10. | Police actions by living arrangements | 32 | | 11. | Probabilities of complete records at 90% and 50% recording reliability | 46 |

List of figures

| Figure No. | Caption | Page | |------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------|------| | 1. | Divisional profile | 2 | | 2. | The domestic violence repeat victimisation model | 4 | | 3. | Repeated and non-repeated attendance of men by entry level January-December 1997 | 24 | | 4. | Number of days between attendances by intervention level | 28 | | 5. | Factors by intervention level | 51 |

1. Background to the project

This domestic violence repeat victimisation project is part of an on-going programme of research and development on policing responses to repeat victimisation. Repeat victimisation was first designated by the Home Office as a key performance indicator in 1995/96 requiring the police to develop systems for identifying repeat victims of a crime of local concern. In 1996/97 the police were required to develop strategies for identifying, reducing and evaluating repeat victimisation of significant offences.

Domestic violence is an obvious, but far from easy, crime for which to develop performance indicators. The home is the most common location of violent crime to women and, in terms of attendance to calls for assistance by police officers, the most repeated of all incidents. Even so, the infrastructure for implementing a sustained focus is rarely present in policing.

This policing project is unique in focusing on both victims and offenders and was only possible because of earlier developments in transforming policing on domestic violence. In 1988, research suggesting that police crime prevention should include domestic violence was accepted by the West Yorkshire Police (Hanmer and Saunders 1987; 1993). Adopting a new approach involved setting up eight domestic violence and child protection units; an independent database, the Domestic Violence Index (DVI); new training modules for officers, and involvement in domestic violence inter-agency fora. Since 1988 the policy has been to arrest whenever possible, to gather evidence as with any other crime, and to ensure the safety of the victim.

This repeat victimisation project is a further development in the implementation of this policy. Killingbeck Division was selected for the project because reducing domestic violence was a Divisional objective. The project is directed at the 90% of domestic violence attendances which involve women who are abused/assaulted by known men. The other 10% are primarily male on male domestic attacks. It was implemented and monitored during 1997 and a PRG Briefing Note presenting interim findings was published in April 1998.

While the work of the Domestic Violence and Child Protection Units largely consisted of child protection and rape investigations, assistance was given with difficult domestic violence cases. In 1998, after Force reorganisation formal responsibility for domestic violence became a Divisional responsibility as almost all incidents were responded to at this level and there was sufficient experience in implementing the policy on domestic violence. Figure 1: Divisional profile West Yorkshire Police is the fourth largest force in England and Wales. Killingbeck, the divisional headquarters for Killingbeck and Garforth, was opened in September 1993 and is one of six divisions in Leeds. It includes part of the inner city and an outer suburb. The population is largely white (97.2%), working class with local authority housing estates (81.6%), some of which are amongst the most depressed in Leeds, along with areas of owner occupation (14.8%). There are small pockets of commercial enterprise spread throughout the Division.

The area covered is 55 square miles (14,229 hectares) and serves a population of 151,839. Both figures represent approximately 7% of the West Yorkshire Force area and population. Policing Killingbeck is the responsibility of a Superintendent Divisional Commander and a Divisional management team comprising three Chief Inspectors (crime, operations and personnel) and a Divisional Administrator. The current operational strength of the division is 277 police officers and 31 civilian support staff. There are two police stations providing a 24 hour policing service.

In 1996-1997 recorded crime for the Division was 20,381, and this was 20% of all recorded crime in Leeds. Of this total, 5% was violent crime, of which one-third was domestic violence against women by their male partners.

Principles of the model The project draws on two previous models; the Lloyd et al (1994) project on domestic violence in Merseyside and the Anderson et al (1995) project on property and vehicle crime in Huddersfield. The Merseyside project concentrated on the victim, while the Huddersfield project linked crime prevention with detection, deflection and victim support and developed a graded response. Crime was conceptualised as having three elements: victim suitability, lack of capable guardianship and a motivated offender. The objectives were to remove these elements in relation to domestic burglary and car crime and to log and analyse repeat incidents accurately, thus providing an up-to-date means of identifying crime hot spots and soft targets.

A new approach to the policing of repeated domestic violence built on these concepts by developing a three-tiered graded response for domestic violence police attendances. This strategy consisted of measures of increasing intensity; Level 1 measures were introduced after the first police attendance, Level 2 after the second and so on. In this model the target is both the offender and the victim. Victim suitability and offender motivation are linked and addressed through positive police interventions which acknowledge the women’s vulnerability, provide suitable support and directly confront the man’s behaviours. The model is based on the understanding that decreasing victim suitability and demotivating offenders require the application of progressive measures of intervention to constrain the offender’s future actions. As the offender is known, providing capable guardianship is achieved by a focus on evidence gathering to secure conviction.

Project objectives

The objectives of the domestic violence repeat victimisation project were to:

• apply progressive measures of intervention through a three-tier response to victims and offenders; • reduce domestic violence repeat victimisation; • increase the time intervals between attendance to domestic violence; • extend a partnership approach to domestic violence; • raise local awareness; • increase victim satisfaction; • raise police and agency partners’ awareness of domestic violence; and, • create a system to record the service provided to victims and offenders.

The model

The model presented in Figure 2 recognises the different situations of women living with, or separately from, the perpetrator. Living together or separately from the perpetrator could be relevant to the police response. No distinction is made between those who have never lived together and those who have at some point in time, because the crucial factor is whether the man is legally entitled to be on the premises. Offences are divided into common law, where arrest is to prevent future breaches of the peace, and criminal law where arrest and evidence gathering are customary police procedures.

The first police attendance is likely to be to an already repeated incident. Qualitative studies have established that numerous assaults of escalating violence are likely to have taken place before the first police attendance. Violence and criminal damage may continue when the woman has left the abuser.

The project calculated repetitions in relation to police attendance in the previous twelve months. With repeat attendances the level of intervention moves from Levels 1 to 2 to 3. Incidents where the men involved have not been attended **Figure 2: The domestic violence repeat victimisation model**

| Intervention level | VICTIM | PERPETRATOR Common law offences | PERPETRATOR Criminal offences | |--------------------|--------|--------------------------------|------------------------------| | **Level 1** | • Gather information\
• Information letter 1\
• Police Watch | • Reiterate force policy\
• First official warning\
• Information letter 1 | • Magistrates – conditional bail/ checks\
• Police Watch\
• Information letter 1 | | **Level 2** | • Information letter 2\
• Community constable visit\
• Cocoon and Police Watches\
• Target harden property | • Reiterate force policy\
• Second official warning\
• Police Watch\
• Information letter 2 | • Magistrates – bail opposed/ checks\
• Police Watch increased\
• Information letter 2\
• CPS file jacket and domestic violence (DV) history | | **Level 3** | • Information letter 3\
• Police Watch\
• Domestic Violence Officer visit\
• Agency meeting\
• Panic button/ vodaphone | • Reiterate force policy\
• Third official warning\
• Police Watch\
• Information letter 3 | • Magistrates – bail opposed/ checks\
• Police Watch increased\
• Information letter 3\
• Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) file jacket and DV history and contact CPS | | **Emergency intervention** | Implement – log reasons for selection | Not Applicable | Implement and log level of action undertaken |

**Common Law Offences** were primarily breach of peace.

**Cocoon Watch** requests the help and support of neighbours, family and relevant agencies in further protecting the victim by contacting the police immediately if further incidents occur. A Cocoon Watch is only implemented with the informed consent of the victim, and the perpetrator is made aware of the action.

**Police Watch** provides a visible police presence to both the victim and the offender and involves police patrols within the vicinity of the incident on a twice weekly basis initially for a period of six weeks immediately following reported incidents. within the past year are dealt with at Level 1. However, in assessing the initial level of intervention the full police record of domestic violence is reviewed. It was also the intention to include information from the woman on previous unreported assaults, but in practice this information was not systematically obtained when officers attended. Entry at higher levels may be required depending upon the number of attendances and previous history.

The model requires continuing input from officers who attend calls and from those who process the outcome of attendances. The Domestic Violence Officer (DVO) has overall responsibility for implementing the specific aspects of the model after officers have attended. Having assigned the level of intervention, she ensures that letters are sent out to victims and offenders tailored to the type of offence and level, that Police Watch requests are made when required, and that Beat Managers visit victimised women at Level 2. She visits women at Level 3 and liaises with other agencies that become involved.

Police patrol officers responding to domestic violence calls provide information to both the victim and the perpetrator and arrest where possible. With common law offences the perpetrator is arrested and removed from the home. When arrest is possible for criminal offences, police also involve the other criminal justice agencies. Additional responses are possible when a woman is living independently as the man has no automatic right of entry into her home. This permits interventions identical or similar to those undertaken for burglary and other property offences when there is an attempted or forced entry.

The model involves increased inter-agency co-operation between the police, probation, Crown Prosecution Service and the courts in identifying and processing incidents. Repeat offence histories are provided by the police to the Crown Prosecution Service so that they can inform the courts, and to the Probation Service who prepare pre-sentence reports for Magistrates. Information on social and welfare agencies is systematically given to women victims both by attending officers and by post, and the DVO liaises directly with specific agencies as appropriate.

Major operational elements

There are four major operational elements in this project:

- equal focus on the victim and the offender

Placing an equal focus on the victim and the offender breaks new ground in responses to domestic violence. An equal focus creates an interactive crime prevention approach. To protect the victim is to demotivate the offender; to demotivate the offender is to protect the victim. The model requires that the victim and perpetrator know about the actions taken in relation to each other, and it requires the elimination of ‘No Further Action’ as a potential police response. An increase in attendance prompts an increase in the level of activity and involvement by the police and other agencies.

Demotivating the offender requires police response on two levels; support that reduces victim suitability and activity that demonstrates the non-acceptability of violence by the perpetrator thus prompting him to confront his own behaviour. Protecting victims also involves providing information that helps women protect themselves. The single most important action a woman can take is to tell others about the attacks on her. Specific police interventions, in particular Cocoon Watch, were designed to facilitate this process by extending the network of people prepared to telephone the police, immediately or subsequently. Permission from the woman to approach neighbours and others is essential.

- involvement of all officers The model requires continuing input from all officers. The only new tasks relate to the work of the DVO and, in a limited way, the Beat Managers (community constables) and patrol officers. In this way, the model overcame the major shortcomings involved in restricting the responsibility for domestic violence to one or two officers within a division or station setting as it created specific roles for officers other than the DVO.

- low additional resource implications Resource implications were a major factor in devising the model. The major resource implications in this project were the designation of one or two officers as DVOs and a part-time civilian clerk to undertake the administrative tasks. Beat Managers and patrol officers undertook limited responses at Levels 2 and above. While these resources could be achieved solely by the reallocation of existing staff to reflect a change in priorities or to meet priorities more effectively, in the Killingbeck Project these involved both new staff and reallocated duties.

- inter-agency involvement The incrementally increasing scale of responses requires an inter-agency approach from two different agency types; those that work with victims and those that work with offenders. The research

There were three phases to the project: constructing the three-tier model of interventions; implementing and operating the model; evaluating the results. The objectives of the evaluation were to:

- record and monitor the implementation of the three-tier model of police interventions;
- construct the measures for assessing the reduction of repeat victimisation and identifying the significant factors involved;
- determine the satisfaction of victims, the deterrence of offenders, and to evaluate officers’ responses in implementing the model;
- assess inter-agency collaboration and communication;
- measure the impact of the project on repeat victimisation; and,
- identify those interventions that most effectively reduce domestic violence repeat victimisation.

Both quantitative and qualitative research methods were required to evaluate the processes and outcomes of incremental interventions.

Close monitoring of the implementation of the model, necessary for evaluation, was also useful for operational policing. It provided descriptive data on the who, when and where of domestic violence in the Division, quantifiable measures of the resources needed to implement the model, and identified the officers and areas where resources were most likely to be required.

The reduction of police attendances over a twelve month period to repeated incidents of domestic violence is the key measure of effectiveness. A three-month sample from 1996 (assigned hypothetical intervention levels) was compared and tested for statistical significance with each three-month period of 1997 (the project period). The 1997 data were also analysed for any variations in repeat offending between men at the different intervention levels, and for factors that appeared to be significant in reducing or increasing repeat victimisation.

The qualitative element of the evaluation provided information on the process and perceptions of the project. The views and experiences of police officers, agencies and women were collected through interviews and questionnaires.

Structure of the report

This report presents the results of the twelve month evaluation of the three-tiered model. Section 2 describes how the model operated in practice and the issues involved in setting up and managing the project. Section 3 examines the results. The question, does the model work?, raises multiple issues and a series of questions: was there a reduction in repeat attendance, how was it achieved, with whom was the model most successful, and were there any other factors that might explain the results? Section 4 presents the views of the police, agencies and women on their experience of the project. Section 5 draws out the main lessons learnt from the work and suggests further directions for domestic violence repeat victimisation studies and operational programmes. Appendix 1 explains in greater detail the issues in and practical aspects of recording domestic violence attendances. Appendix 2 presents further information on the statistical analysis. Appendix 3 contains a fuller description of the factors tested for their relevance to career profiling and risk assessment of men attended for domestic violence. 2. How did the model operate in practice?

Implementing the three-tiered model of interventions depended upon developing criteria to identify repeat offenders and to allocate intervention levels and interventions. Successfully accomplishing these tasks required efficient and accurate recording systems. It also required training all officers and effective day-to-day management. This section discusses these issues and presents what happened, the identification of problems and how they were addressed, along with descriptive statistical information on interventions.

Identifying repeat offenders

The Home Office defines repeat victimisation as occurring “when the same person or places suffers from more than one criminal incident over a specified period of time”. (Bridgeman and Sampson, 1994). The victim as indicator of the repeat status of a crime is particularly relevant when the offender is unknown. However, in cases where the perpetrator is known, such as domestic violence, taking the victim’s previous history as a sole means of identifying repeats would ignore a man’s history of violence towards other women. For example, if Mrs X has no previous entry on the Domestic Violence Index (DVI), the Level 1 set of interventions would be allocated, but this would ignore the possibility that her current partner has an extensive history of violent assaults on women which could warrant a more intensive intervention level. Also, because domestic violence is the most repeated of all incidents requiring police action with numerous (unreported) assaults likely to have taken place before the police are asked to attend, various indicators of repetition were examined:

- the woman’s account of previous incidents not reported to the police;
- same woman/man incidents logged on the Domestic Violence Index since its inception in 1989;
- same woman/man incidents logged on the Domestic Violence Index over the previous 12 months;
- the man’s previous violence to other women on the Domestic Violence Index since its inception in 1989; and,
- the man’s previous violence to other women on the Domestic Violence Index over the previous 12 months.

As the Killingbeck project focused equally on the victim and the perpetrator, the definition used for the allocation of level of entry was the man’s history of incidents with any women recorded on the DVI. Attendance during the previous 12 months was the primary factor determining the allocation of the level of intervention. Although initially it was thought other factors could influence the final decision, in practice this was rarely the case. Other factors considered were: the nature of previous incidents, whether the man was living with or separated from the woman (or women), the frequency of previous police attendances, previous police actions, the existence of injunctions and/or related bail conditions, and information given by the woman to attending officers about previous reported or unreported incidents.

Allocation of intervention levels

The Domestic Violence Officer had responsibility for co-ordinating the operation of the model beginning with the allocation of the intervention level. This required the development of criteria. The guiding principles of simplicity and uniformity were intended to ensure comprehensive and consistent operation of the project. However, because the project was implemented in one Division of West Yorkshire Police, the model was applied only when both the woman and man or only the woman lived within the Killingbeck Division. Attendance to attacks on wives and girlfriends in public places in the Division could not be included if women lived outside the Killingbeck Division or if the disturbance and crime to a woman residing in the Killingbeck Division occurred in another policing area.

There were a number of stages to the process of allocating interventions once an attendance met the above criteria.

• Identification of repeat status The first indicator is the man’s history of violence against this and other women which included incidents occurring outside the Killingbeck Division.

The second indicator is the number of relevant attendances to this or other women in the 12 months prior to the triggering incident.

• Ascribing intervention levels No previous police attendances resulted in a Level 1 allocation; one previous incident in Level 2; and two or more previous incidents in a Level 3 allocation. If the man was already in the project then the next level of interventions was applied; that is, from Level 1 to Level 2 to Level 3. A fourth attendance entailed a repeat of all appropriate Level 3 interventions. All further attendances were ascribed Level 4, but no interventions were implemented unless previously requested interventions (e.g. Beat Manager visit, Police Watch) had not taken place.

On occasion, two or more incidents occurred on the same day or on two consecutive days. Each individual attendance would be logged, but as interventions took one or two days to implement, a single intervention level would be allocated. In some situations the nature of the offence or the man’s history of violence prior to the last 12 months meant an emergency intervention level was allocated. Thus, a first attendance within 12 months could have warranted a Level 2 or 3 intervention due to the man’s previous history. For example, one man attempted to murder his wife and while on release from prison assaulted her again. Although there was no attendance in the previous 12 months and despite a new partner being the triggering event, Level 3 interventions were allocated. If a domestic violence attendance was not recorded in time for the allocation of a level and the appropriate interventions, the attendance was classified as 0.

Training of officers and day-to-day management

To prepare for the project all officers were offered training that aimed to increase their understanding of domestic violence and its potential consequences, and to convey the project rationale, its interventions and their role within it. The project was devised to target police action while requiring minimal additional inputs by officers. Almost all officers received four hours of introductory training in groups composed of officers with differing responsibilities and of varied rank. This initial training was supplemented during the year as required in order to eliminate problems and to improve efficiency. In addition, information was given at briefings and through printed progress reports from time to time.

The operational management of the project required the appointment of a DVO of sufficient rank to obtain co-operation and respect from other officers. At Killingbeck this was resolved by appointing a sergeant, assisted by a WPC and an administrative assistant. Major operational management issues included:

- ensuring all interventions took place;
- liaison with other officers and CPS;
- co-ordination with social and welfare agencies;
- monitoring outcomes;
- identifying and responding to persistent problems, for example how to ensure women are immediately notified of bail conditions; and,
- two officers were needed to make Level 3 visits with the use of a car (because the Division covers a large geographical area and given the range of possible responses from violent men).

These resources, gradually acquired over the life of the project, were found to be the minimum needed. Operation of the project

During 1997 the police attended a total of 2,163 domestic violence incidents involving 1,249 men. Of these, 914 (42%) were repeat attendances. There were 387 men who were seen for a second or more time during the year. These men generated a total of 1,301 police attendances. Over the twelve months, almost one-third (31%) of men attended for domestic violence were responsible for just under two-thirds (60%) of police attendances.

As the purpose was to explore the significance of the project interventions in reducing domestic violence repeat attendances, some police attendances were excluded from the statistical analysis. Calculating volume of attendance in this way resulted in 1,870 attendances to 1,200 men and, of course, the women involved in these incidents. These are the data used for statistical analysis of the effectiveness of the model.

- Patrol officers

The three-tiered intervention model began with attendance by patrol officers. Before arrival at the scene, Area Control Room (ACR) staff informed patrol officers of any previous attendance at the address and further details on who was attended and so forth if there was sufficient time to do so. The patrol officers were not informed of the current level of intervention because it was not possible to add this information to the existing database from which ACR staff operated. Patrol officers had two responsibilities; to send appropriate information to the Area Control Room staff and to respond to the situation in the light of the Chief Constable’s policy on domestic violence. Information sent to the ACR was then retrieved by the Domestic Violence Officers who allocated the level of intervention to be implemented (see Appendix 1).

Attendances varied by month with the greatest number in July, August and December with the highest, 201, in August and the lowest, 111, in February. The average monthly attendance was 156.

Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday were the days of the week when most attendances occurred and Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday the least. The peak occurred on Sunday with 397 attendances, 21% of the total. The lowest point, Tuesday, had 201 attendances, 11% of the total.

The number of attendances began to rise from 4.00 p.m. onwards; peaked between midnight and 2.00 a.m. and declined thereafter. In terms of police shifts, the night shift received the most domestic calls and the day shift the least. These varied from a low of 14 (.7%) at 6.00 a.m. to a high of 236 (12.6%) at midnight. The attendances allocated to each level are given in Table 1 with the proportion arrested and the outcomes of arrest.

| Level | No. of attendances | No. of arrests (% of attendances) | Released (% of arrests) | Criminal charges (% of arrests) | Breach of Peace (% of arrests) | Other\* (% of arrests) | |---------|--------------------|-----------------------------------|-------------------------|---------------------------------|--------------------------------|-----------------------| | Level 0 | 371 (20%) | 59 (16%) | 18 (31%) | 23 (39%) | 8 (14%) | 10 (17%) | | Level 1 | 886 (47%) | 268 (30%) | 165 (62%) | 54 (20%) | 39 (15%) | 10 (4%) | | Level 2 | 299 (16%) | 77 (26%) | 38 (49%) | 21 (27%) | 13 (17%) | 5 (6%) | | Level 3 | 160 (9%) | 52 (33%) | 22 (42%) | 19 (37%) | 10 (19%) | 1 (2%) | | Level 4 | 154 (8%) | 46 (30%) | 17 (37%) | 22 (48%) | 7 (15%) | 0 | | TOTAL | 1870 (100%) | 502 (27%) | 260 (52%) | 139 (28%) | 77 (15%) | 26 (5%) |

- includes warrants and unknown outcomes

The total number of attendances was 1,870 of which 47% (886) received Level 1 interventions; 16% (299) Level 2; 9% (160) Level 3; and 8% (154) received Level 4 interventions (a repeat of the Level 3 interventions where appropriate). Twenty per cent of the attendances (371) received no interventions, the main reason being the initial attendance was not logged on the DVI and the time taken to update the DVI placed them outside the scope of the project. Over the year of the project, the recording rate, which depended upon correct final code attribution by attending officers and the area control room staff, increased from 50% to 80%. As the DVI is a separate computer programme, it was not possible to improve further on this recording rate during the project period (see Appendix 1 for a fuller discussion of the issues).

Over the year the arrest rate of 27% did not increase and was lower than the 1996 total of 34%. There was no significant variation between attendance level and arrest, except for the Level 0 entrants. What happened to men after arrest, however, did relate to their level, whether they had progressed to it or entered on it. Men were most likely to be released after a few hours at Level 1 (62%), with release gradually reducing as the level increased. Reduction in release was related to an increase in criminal charges. There was no difference between the percentage referred for Breach of the Peace and intervention levels. Only Level 0 entrants differed from the pattern observed from Levels 1 to 4. This indicates that the men who received no interventions were a group with mixed characteristics. The systematic patterns of release and charging after arrest suggest that men who behave more violently progress to higher levels of intervention.

• Letters

Letters were sent when possible to both women and men up to and including a fourth attendance. In addition women received a business card with a list of other helpful agencies. The purpose was to ensure both the woman and the man knew the police were taking domestic violence seriously and to provide practical information on how to contact the Domestic Violence Officer and others. Each intervention level had two possible letters to be sent to the victim and two possible letters to be sent to the offender. The letter sent at each level depended on whether there were criminal charges or not. Letters ‘A’ were sent when no criminal charges were made, which included attendances where an arrest for Breach of the Peace occurred. Letters ‘B’ were sent when the man was arrested on criminal charges and released on conditional bail or if criminal charges resulted in the man being kept on remand in which case the information on bail conditions was replaced with information on remand and court dates.

If the man was a repeat offender the appropriate level letter would be sent, but if the same incident was a first attendance to the woman, she would be sent a Level 1 letter. This was required because Level 2 and Level 3 letters referred to previous attendances. All letters to women were posted at least one day in advance of letters to their male partners. There was a total of 1,499 attendances to which letters could have been sent as there were no interventions at Level 0, and after a Level 4 attendance was reached, no further letters were sent.

Letters were sent to 1,387 women (92%) and to 1,310 men (87%). Men received fewer letters than women as their addresses were not always known. The sending of letters was the most consistently applied intervention.

• Beat Manager visits

Beat Manager visits were automatically implemented at all Level 2 attendances unless the woman had moved outside the Killingbeck Division or into a refuge, or the attending officer had advised against the sending of letters. The purpose of the Beat Manager visits were to increase awareness of police actions, to explore whether a Cocoon Watch could be implemented, and if any other assistance was needed. Women who accepted Cocoon Watch, while a minority, wanted greater support from the community. Those who were asked to keep an eye out and phone the police if they saw or heard anything of concern, were almost always willing to co-operate.

Of the 299 attendances ascribed Level 2 interventions, 294 resulted in requests for Beat Manager visits of which 218 (74%) took place. There are 21 Beat Managers in Killingbeck and over the year the greatest number of requests made to a single officer was 27, an average of 2.3 per month.

Tables 2 and 3 present the number of visits requested, visits made, Cocoon Watch offers, acceptances and rejections for the two six month periods, January to June 1997 and July to December 1997. These show considerable variation between beats with improvement in positive responses to Cocoon Watch over time. This detail is reproduced in order to demonstrate the importance of record keeping for training, feedback sessions, and management of individual officers.

In Table 2, no Beat Manager was asked to speak to more than thirteen women over the first six months. In only five beats were all visits made, although women were not always at home when officers called. When Cocoon Watch offers were made, all were rejected in ten beats. Not all women knew their neighbours or had good relations with them, or wished them to know about their affairs, but Cocoon Watch could also involve family and friends who were not in the immediate neighbourhood. These results are not as negative as they appear as women were positive about Beat Managers visits whether or not the option of Cocoon Watch was offered or taken up. Women could welcome the visit as a sign of police interest and support, while judging the situation to be safe enough or sufficiently under control not to require any further action.

These results suggest that the new approach to domestic violence required more police training to achieve the attitudes and understanding necessary to know how to make more effective contact with women in domestic violence situations. A feedback and training session for Beat Managers, attended by the Divisional Commander and others associated with the programme, resulted in improved results in the second six months. Table 3 shows that the number of requests for Beat Manager visits increased as revised forms and follow-up procedures were implemented. No Beat Manager was asked to visit more than 18 women during this period. Visits increased from 61% of requests in the first six months to 84% in the second six months. Cocoon Watch offers also increased as did their acceptance. Most importantly for officer morale and as a check on improved standards, the ten beats in the first six months without a single positive response dropped to two. Continued additional training and feedback is likely to lead to continued improvement in these figures.

Table 2: Beat Manager visits and Cocoon Watch January-June 1997

| Beat no. | No. of visits requested | No. of visits made | Cocoon Watch offers | Cocoon Watch accepted | |----------|-------------------------|--------------------|---------------------|-----------------------| | 1 | 6 | 3 (50%) | 2 | 0 (0%) | | 2 | 8 | 8 (100%) | 8 | 1 (14%) | | 3 | 13 | 11 (85%) | 9 | 0 (0%) | | 4 | 10 | 8 (80%) | 4 | 2 (50%) | | 5 | 4 | 4 (100%) | 3 | 0 (0%) | | 6 | 7 | 3 (43%) | 3 | 1 (33%) | | 7 | 10 | 6 (60%) | 2 | 1 (50%) | | 8 | 9 | 5 (56%) | 3 | 2 (67%) | | 9 | 5 | 5 (100%) | 4 | 1 (25%) | | 10 | 1 | 1 (100%) | 0 | - | | 11 | 1 | 0 (0%) | - | - | | 12 | 4 | 2 (50%) | 2 | 1 (50%) | | 13 | 6 | 3 (33%) | 2 | 0 (0%) | | 14 | 8 | 3 (38%) | 3 | 0 (0%) | | 15 | 5 | 4 (80%) | 4 | 0 (0%) | | 16 | 7 | 1 (13%) | 1 | 1 (100%) | | 17 | 10 | 3 (30%) | 3 | 0 (0%) | | 18 | 5 | 3 (60%) | 3 | 0 (0%) | | 19 | 2 | 1 (50%) | 1 | 0 (0%) | | 20 | 7 | 5 (71%) | 4 | 2 (50%) | | 21 | 1 | 1 (100%) | 1 | 0 (0%) | | TOTAL | 129 | 79 (61%) | 62 | 12 (19%) | Police Watch was automatically implemented at Level 3 unless the man had been remanded in jail, and was implemented at Levels 1 and 2 only if criminal charges resulted in conditional or unconditional bail. The purpose of Police Watch was to indicate to both the man and the woman, through an increased police presence, the seriousness of domestic violence to the police.

Initially, the standard Police Watch was two visits by a passing car per week for six weeks. This time period was chosen because previous research suggested that women are at greater risk of another attack within five weeks of an incident (Lloyd... et al 1994). On the basis of project data obtained in the first six months, the Police Watch period was reduced to four weeks for the remainder of the project.

Days and times for Police Watch were determined by previous attendance. If there was a discernible pattern to the man’s use of violence the same days and times were selected. If there was no pattern, the days or times of the last two incidents were selected.

Where Police Watch was for a Level 1 incident, then the number of times officers drove past the address was reduced to one per week with the day and time being the same as that of the triggering incident.

Some 204 Police Watches were requested and 161 were acted upon (79%). The average rate for the Division was 4 requests per week. Tables 4 and 5 show how the number of requested attendances varied between Levels 1, 2, 3, and 4. There were few requests at Levels 1 and 2 over each six month period; almost all requests were at Level 3 and a small number at Level 4. The number of attendances in relation to requests increased from the first to the second six month period, from 69% to 88%. Again, training and feedback sessions with patrol groups, along with

| Table 4: Police Watch attendances by intervention levels January-June 1997 | |-----------------------------|-----------------------------| | Level | No. of Police Watch requests (% of all attendances) | No. of Police Watch attendances (% of requests) | | Level 1 | 19 (5%) | 14 (74%) | | Level 2 | 7 (5%) | 4 (57%) | | Level 3 | 60 (95%) | 44 (73%) | | Level 4 | 11 (22%) | 5 (45%) | | TOTAL | 97 (15%) | 67 (69%) |

| Table 5: Police Watch attendances by intervention levels July-December 1997 | |-----------------------------|-----------------------------| | Level | No. of Police Watch requests (% of all attendances) | No. of Police Watch attendances (% of requests) | | Level 1 | 4 (1%) | 2 (50%) | | Level 2 | 0 (0%) | - | | Level 3 | 96 (99%) | 87 (91%) | | Level 4 | 7 (7%) | 5 (71%) | | TOTAL | 107 (12%) | 94 (88%) | the appointment of a Sergeant as Domestic Violence Officer to assist the WPC who sustained the programme during the first six months, were important in achieving these improved results. Women found it supportive that police cars were seen in the streets where they lived. Some officers also stopped when driving past to enquire if the woman and her children were all right. This, too, could be greatly appreciated.

- **Domestic Violence Officer visits**

A Domestic Violence Officer (DVO) visit to the woman was automatically implemented at Level 3. The aim was to explore further with the woman her options, including other agencies that might be able to assist her, and to ensure that all the interventions had been implemented or, in the case of Cocoon Watch, offered to her.

There were 160 men attended who were allocated a Level 3 intervention. Of these attendances, 104 women were contacted by the DVOs and a further 56 were either not at home or could not be contacted. At Level 4, 19 of the 56 women who had not been previously contacted were seen or spoken to by the DVOs. In total 123 telephone or home visits were made to women and unsuccessful attempts were made to contact the remaining 37 women. The DVOs made an average of 3.5 contacts per week. The women’s needs and further assistance that could be offered were discussed and agreed; for example, obtaining a voda phone or contacting a local agency on behalf of the women.

Where possible, contact was made by telephone, while home visits were necessary when women did not have one. While the original intention was that all women at Level 3 would be visited, the DVOs did not have an allocated vehicle until the last three months of the project and further, the second DVO was appointed only during the last four months of the project period. This meant that the first DVO relied on other officers and a vehicle being available in order to make visits for the greater part of the project year. These limitations necessitated telephone contact with women at Level 3 whenever possible. The project advisory group were not initially aware of the need for these additional resources, hence their gradual attainment and the modification of the model.

- **Inter-agency communication and co-ordination**

Agencies offering support for victims through legal and other advice, counselling, short and long term accommodation were in the statutory, private and voluntary sectors. The DVO attended inter-agency meetings in local and city fora. Copies of the letters to men were sent by the DVO to women when requested. These were often used to confirm police attendance for domestic violence in civil courts and for housing applications, for example.

Regarding offenders, closer inter-agency co-ordination was undertaken with the Crown Prosecution Service and the Probation Service. The Crown Prosecution Service agreed to act quickly on colour coded domestic violence files and liaised directly with Killingbeck Division and the DVO over specific issues. The West Yorkshire Probation Service, upon request from the magistrates, would prepare pre-sentence reports using information from the Domestic Violence Index, and interviews with the women as well as the men. This ground-breaking pilot, focusing on both victims and offenders, was judged so successful by the Probation Service that it has been introduced throughout the county.

Management through monitoring and recording

West Yorkshire Police has four databases that operate independently for logging and monitoring their crime information and management usage and trends. Whilst the project had access to these databases they could not be adapted for the purposes of the project. Consequently a stand-alone micro was dedicated to the project and both the managerial monitoring and the quantitative evaluation of the project were achieved by the use of the database program Access.

The data collected on Access consisted of information culled from the police databases. A police attendance to a domestic violence scene triggered a new record based on the man’s name. Each record held historical information about the men’s previous domestic violence; the triggering incident (names of those involved, ages and a summary of the events); follow-up information on the outcome of any arrests made when the police attended (period in custody, charges, bail, court results); and background information on any relevant injunctions or warrants.

Specific project information was also logged and attached to each attendance record. Here the actions undertaken at each intervention level were recorded, both in terms of the dates requests for Police Watch or Beat Manager visits were made, date of implementation and any observations the officers may have added.

Paper forms were distributed to the relevant officers when a Police Watch was required or a Beat Manager visit. Each form included details of the domestic violence attendance and, if any, bail information. The forms were designed to be completed by the officers and returned to the DVO. When returned these details were logged on the project’s database. Information on the project’s database was used regularly to monitor the officers’ implementation of project interventions, the response of the women to officer visits, and the beat areas where most demand occurred.

Establishing the accuracy of recording repeat victimisation

There were considerable difficulties in obtaining accurate recording by police of domestic violence attendances. When the project began, the failure rate of recording attendances on the Domestic Violence Index (DVI), the West Yorkshire Police computerised database established in 1989 to log attendances regarded as ‘domestic’, was 50%. Table 6 shows the probability of obtaining complete records of repeat attendances when the recording rate is 50%. At best, only 25% of cases involving two attendances to the same people would be recorded, while 75% would either be recorded as a single attendance or not recorded at all. As the number of attendances in each sequence increases, the probability of a complete record progressively decreases. In order to evaluate the success of the programme the recording rate had to be increased.

During 1997 the recording rate on the DVI increased from 50% to 80%. Even with intensive follow-up by the researchers and operational officers it was not possible to increase this percentage further. There are multiple reasons for this. First, a higher logging failure is inherent in a double-entry system of recording where human error and time-pressure can intervene before an attendance is logged onto a second system. Second, training is necessary to ensure that a precise and unambiguously worded definition of ‘domestic’ is fully understood by all officers. Third, a tendency

| Number of attendances for domestic violence | Probability of complete record | |-------------------------------------------|-------------------------------| | 2 | 25.0% | | 3 | 12.5% | | 4 | 6.3% | | 5 | 3.1% | | 6 | 1.6% | | 7 | 0.8% | | 8 | 0.4% | | 9 | 0.2% | | 10 | 0.1% |

Appendix 1 further explores the implications of incomplete recording for operational responses to repeat victimisation. to allocate one final-code out of a larger allowed number reduces recording to the aspect that assumes greatest importance for the officer. Fourth, the view that domestics are trivial reduces the incentive to record.

With more accurate recording and a greater awareness by the police, however, the number of recorded attendances doubled as anticipated. A total of 2,163 attendances were made and logged on the DVI. This does not represent an increased operational work-load for officers as they were already attending this number of incidents. Greater accuracy in recording should facilitate an increase in awareness of the amount of time and resources required for this area of policing.

Overview of organisational achievements

- involved all officers in the Division;
- low additional resource implications;
- established the accuracy of recording on the Domestic Violence Index;
- developed recording categories for DVI;
- positive impact on uneven service delivery to victims and offenders;
- equal policing attention on victim safety and demotivating the offender; and,
- improved communication and inter-agency co-ordination.

3. Does the model work?

This section addresses a series of questions on the outcomes of the systematic use of the model over twelve months. Did the model reduce repeat victimisation? With whom did it work? How did the model reduce repeat attendance? Can the results be explained by other factors?

Did the model reduce repeat attendance?

To assess the model’s effectiveness the level of domestic violence attendances in 1997 is compared with a three-month period in 1996 before the project began.

The aim of the project was to reduce the number of attendances at Levels 2 or above. Table 7 confirms that the numbers of men entering the project at Levels 2 and 3 have significantly decreased since the project began. During April to June 1996, the pre-project period, Level 1 entries were less frequent and Levels 2 and 3 more frequent than during the project. The change at each level is progressive over each quarter of 1997. This reflects growing understanding of the model and improvements in police operational systems to implement it.

Table 7: Entry level of men by quarterly time periods

| Time periods | Level 0 | Level 1 | Level 2 | Level 3 | Totals | |--------------------|---------|---------|---------|---------|--------| | Pre-project Apr-June 1996 | - | 216 (66%) | 69 (21%) | 44 (13%) | 329 (100%) | | Project Jan-Mar 1997 | 71 (22%) | 192 (60%) | 38 (12%) | 21 (6%) | 322 (100%) | | Project Apr-June 1997 | 75 (26%) | 185 (63%) | 29 (10%) | 4 (1%) | 293 (100%) | | Project July-Sept 1997 | 46 (15%) | 236 (78%) | 16 (5%) | 6 (2%) | 304 (100%) | | Project Oct-Dec 1997 | 38 (13%) | 239 (85%) | 2 (1%) | 2 (1%) | 281 (100%) |

Table 7 establishes that for each quarter of 1997:

- project entry at Level 1 increased relative to entry at Levels 2. Sixty percent of entries were at Level 1 in the first quarter and rose to 85% in the last quarter, while Levels 2 and 3 accounted for 18% in the first quarter dropping to 2% in the last quarter.

- greater accuracy in Domestic Violence Index (DVI) recording of domestic violence attendances as the Level 0 entries decreased. • the total number of men entering the project varies, but there is no evidence to suggest that these fluctuations are statistically significant.

These findings demonstrate that over the year more women received police assistance, as the overall number of incidents attended remained constant but with more Level 1 entries. The 1992 British Crime Survey estimated that nationally approximately 20% of domestic violence incidents are reported to the police by women and their supporters (Mayhew, Aye Maung, and Mirrlees-Black, 1993). Increased reporting is a positive outcome as is decreased repeat attendance.

At some point saturation may be reached as there is not a limitless supply of women who require police attendance. When every woman who requires attendance receives it and, if repeat attendance continues to be effectively prevented, we would expect to see overall numbers of incidents reduce. This project would need to continue over an extended time period in order to establish when this was achieved. Even with stable incidence numbers, however, there was a saving in police resources as the increasing Level 1 interventions require less time to be spent on responding to domestic calls.

In Figure 3, overall 70% of men did not require a repeat attendance, but the higher the Level the more likely men were to be attended again; e.g. 46% at Level 2 and 64% at Level 3. There is a progressive increase in repeat attendance as entry levels increase from Level 1 to 3. Level 0 is greater than Level 1, but less than Levels 2 or 3 in terms of those who needed repeat attendances. Table 8 provides further information on the progression between Levels. This table can be read horizontally and diagonally. Horizontal reading shows the number and proportions of attendances at each entry level. For example, 230 men received no interventions which could be the first or a repeat attendance. Eight hundred and fifty two received Level 1, 85 received Level 2 and 33 received Level 3 interventions. Diagonal reading shows the progression of men requiring repeat attendances for each entry Level. For example 210 of the Level 1 entrants required a second attendance (25% of the original 852), and of these 75 required a third attendance (9% of the original 852) and so on.

| Level 0 | Level 1 | Level 2 | Level 3 | Level 4 | Totals | |---------|---------|---------|---------|---------|--------| | 1st attendance | 230 (100%) | 852 (100%) | 85 (100%) | 33 (100%) | 1200 (100%) | | 2nd attendance | 85 (37%) | 210 (25%) | 39 (46%) | 21 (64%) | 355 (30%) | | 3rd attendance | 36 (16%) | 75 (9%) | 27 (32%) | 13 (39%) | 151 (13%) | | 4th attendance | 16 (7%) | 31 (4%) | 12 (14%) | 9 (27%) | 68 (6%) | | 5 and more attendances | 7 (3%) | 11 (1%) | 9 (11%) | 6 (18%) | 33 (3%) |

Total attendances 1870

Early intervention

Table 8 and Figure 3 show that early intervention achieves the greatest reduction in repeat attendances.

- Level 1 entrants have the lowest proportion of re-attendances. Level 1 entrants performed better than any other entry with 75% not requiring a second attendance during 1997. The percentage of Level 1 entrants requiring two or three or more attendances was consistently less than those at the other levels.

Other major findings are:

- Repeat attendance increases with entry Level from 1 to 2 to 3.

- Within each entry level the number of men requiring repeat attendances gradually decreases with each repeat attendance. • For those who experienced no project interventions at the point of entry into the project, i.e. Level 0, their subsequent progression to Level 2 and beyond is significantly higher than those who entered at Level 1.

• Level 2 entrants have a higher proportion of attendances for each repeat attendance required than Level 0, but lower than that required for Level 3 entrants.

Offenders with a history of police attendance for domestic violence were allocated an entry Level of 2 or 3. Subsequently, they are not as likely to be demotivated as Level 1 entrants. This indicates that introducing the first intervention at Level 2 or 3 is not as effective as a first intervention at Level 1. The most likely reasons for this are either that the offender has become desensitised or has concluded that the police do not object to his behaviour or both.

**Chronic offenders**

Table 8 records both the number of men and the number of attendances and allows the identification of chronic repeat offenders. To be effective, the three-tiered intervention model calls for a rational response from an offender; i.e. the recognition that the actions taken in relation to him and the support given to his victim mean that it will become progressively more difficult to continue with his behaviour without the likelihood of some negative consequences to himself and/or his behaviour will become less effective in relation to his victim (see footnote 3). This message was not received by everyone; for example, of the 33 men attended five times or more during 1997, seven entered at Level 0, eleven at Level 1, nine at Level 2, and six at Level 3.

• If overall failure of the programme is defined as the entry of an offender into Level 4, then the overall observed failure rate for 1997 was 7%. The failure rate was highest among Level 2 and 3 entrants. Once the model becomes established, advanced entry should be a rare occurrence. With all entries at Level 1, the failure rate drops to 3.5%. This confirms that the three-tiered model is a robust system of intervention and that rational decision-making is occurring.

• A minority of men, easily identified through their individual repeat pattern, were not demotivated. These chronic offenders require further assessment. Police interventions can be tailored to meet specific situations and begin with one or more individuals, although the involvement of other agencies may be required for some men; for example, mental health. Increasing time intervals between repeat attendance

Over the year, repeat attendance was reduced in another way: the time intervals increased between calls for assistance.

Previous research on domestic violence found that after a first attendance, 35% of households required a second attendance within five weeks, and 45% of those requiring a second attendance needed a third within five weeks (Lloyd et al 1994). This project demonstrates greatly extended time intervals between repeat attendance. Within five weeks 9% who entered at Level 1 were attended again; of those requiring Level 2 and Level 3 interventions, 15% and 26%, were attended again.

Survival analysis is a way of showing how long an offender can 'survive' before being attended again by the police. Survival time, the number of days between calls to the police, is a period of temporary demotivation of an offender which is terminated by a repeat attendance. The outcome of a single attendance only during the year is either a totally demotivated offender or someone who may require another attendance after the closing date of the project. Obviously men who entered the project near the final date of 31 December 1997 have less time in which repeat attendances could occur.

Figure 4 represents graphically the survival patterns of each offender according to his intervention level. As each man requires a repeat attendance, the percentage surviving is systematically reduced. The Level 1 line shows when each of the 210 (25%) men required a repeat attendance. The gradual decline in this line shows that these are well separated events over time and that 75% had survived 350 days before being attended again. When Level 1 entrants require attendance at Level 2 their survival pattern before needing a third attendance is represented by the Level 2 line. The decline is steeper than at Level 1 showing that the interval between repeat attendances is shorter. The survival pattern at Level 3 shows an even more rapid decline. This describes the relatively shorter periods of time between repeat attendances to Level 3 men as they progress to Level 4. The Level 0 pattern of survival indicates that these men seem to be a combination of Level 2 and Level 3 men, as the profile crosses both the Level 2 and Level 3 lines.

Figure 4 also shows the median survival time, i.e. the time in which 50% of all the men at each intervention level required a repeat attendance. The median is used, and not the mean or average, because not all men required a repeat attendance within the year and, even over a greater time scale, not all men will do so. The median survival time at Level 1 is well over one year; at Level 2 it is 270 days; and at Level 3 it is 150 days. Over a year a median survival time for Level 1 is not applicable as more than 50% will survive into the future without requiring a repeat attendance.

The question is, given a longer time period, what are the proportions of offenders who are likely to have been totally demotivated? Figure 4 survival data can be statistically manipulated to predict the proportion of men who will require a repeat attendance at some point in the future and those who will not. For Level 1 the number of men who are demotivated and will not require a repeat attendance drops from 75% to 61%. An estimated 39% required or will require another attendance; that is, within the year 25% required a repeat attendance and a further 14% will do so in the future.

The Level 2 pattern is different. 42% of offenders were estimated to be demotivated and 58% required or will require another attendance; that is, 46% required repeat attendance in the project period and 12% more after will do so after the project has ended. These revised figures imply that the median survival time of 270 days may alter once the 12% who will be reattended in the future is added to the 46% who have already been reattended. Depending on the interval between the first and second attendance of this 12%, the median may remain the same or increase or decrease.

**Figure 4: Number of days between attendances by intervention level**

The time intervals between reattendance can vary between 24 hours and over 12 months. The 12% yet to be reattended include men attended between 1 January 1997 and 31 December 1997, the last day of the study period. Thus men may be reattended who have been in the project more or less than 270 days.

**Split population analysis. See Appendix 2** At Level 3 where the most chronic and persistent offenders are located, only 36% could have been demotivated as 64% were observed to fail. The analysis again suggests that there has been no censorship at Level 3 as these men are quick to re-offend and Level 3 entrants were almost non-existent towards the end of the project. The median survival time of 150 days at Level 3 is accurate.

To summarise, Figure 4 demonstrates that the level of intervention is a significant factor in reducing repeat attendance. In practical terms this means that the different repeat attendance patterns at each level of entry:

- define variations between men. These variations are the beginning of domestic violence career profiling of men.
- define variations in risk to women of experiencing repeat victimisation. These variations provide a criterion for the allocation of police resources.

With whom did the model work?

The second way in which the survival patterns can be extended and domestic violence career profiling and risk assessment be advanced is by introducing other factors. The question is, as well as level of intervention are there other factors that can change day-to-day risk of repeat victimisation?

The data collected by the police at the time of attendance allowed eight further factors to be statistically assessed in five areas (see Appendix 3). The areas are the man’s history of violence both before and during the project period, the relationship between the man and the woman, their ages, the residential areas of women and men, police action at the attendance, and whether all project interventions were made. At Level 1 three of these factors were statistically significant, at Level 2 none, and at Level 3, four. The emergence of significant factors depends upon commonality between men in each level.

The men with a previously recorded attendance, even though this was prior to the 12 months before their entry into the project, were more likely to require a subsequent attendance.

- Thus any pre-project attendance is the first factor identified as significant in predicting re-offending.
- The second factor relates to arrest. Arrested men were 51% more likely to require another attendance. This establishes arrest as a factor identifying repeat offenders.

[\\text{Proportional hazards model. See Appendix 2}] • The third factor is the beat area in which victims live. Victims were more likely to live in high crime areas, but a move from a high crime beat to a medium, or a medium to a low crime beat, decreases the risk of re-attendance by 29%. Even more dramatic, a move from a high crime beat to a low decreases the risk of re-attendance by 51%. Moving in the opposite direction also has a significant impact on re-attendance. A move from a low to a medium or a medium to a high crime beat increases the risk of re-attendance by 40%.

At Level 2 there was insufficient commonality between men for significant factors to emerge.

At Level 3 the most significant factor is age difference. • Each year of age difference in both directions has a substantial impact on re-attendance. When the offender is older than the victim, re-attendance reduces by 5% for every year of age difference between them. When the offender’s age is less than that of the victim the risk of re-attendance increases by 6% per year of age difference. • The second factor is the beat area of the offender. By Level 3, men were living in lower crime areas than their victims. This is because women were more likely to be separated from violent partners by then and local authority housing often is in higher crime areas. • The third factor, the result of rehousing, was that by Level 3 women were living in less desirable locations in the city. • Pre-project attendances is the fourth factor with men who entered the project at Level 3 being 69% more likely to require another attendance than men who entered at Level 1 and progressed to Level 3.

Three factors were not significant at any level. • A statistically significant distinction between incomplete and complete interventions could not be made because of the number of measures at each Level and because incomplete implementation always contained more completed interventions than not. • Second, whether men entered at Level 1, 2, or 3, or progressed from Level 1 to 2 or 3 did not make a difference. This is further proof that the interventions were effective with men regardless of their history of domestic violence attendances. • Third, living arrangements too, offered further evidence that it is the repeat victimisation model of interventions that is making the difference in reducing repeat attendance and in increasing the time interval between requests for repeat attendances and not whether men and women were living together or separately. See Appendix 3 for a more detailed discussion of these factors.

**Does women leaving make a difference?**

The most obvious factor that could account for these positive results is the action of women in separating or staying together. Leaving is the most common action taken by women after all other ways of attempting to manage the relationship have failed. Table 9 shows that whatever the entry level, police attendance to women and men living together and separately is not significantly different for Levels 1, 2, and 3, although there is a progressive pattern with the percentage together decreasing as entry level increases. Nevertheless with any specific level, the length of survival times were not associated with living together or separately.

At Level 0 there is a larger difference, with women who are living separately significantly more likely to require a police attendance. There was a systematic error in allocating domestic violence final codes as those living together were more likely to be recorded on the DVI than those living separately (see Appendix 1).

| 1st attendance entry level | Together | Separate | Total | |----------------------------|----------|----------|-------| | Level 0 | 61 (27%) | 169 (73%)| 230 (100%) | | Level 1 | 495 (58%)| 357 (42%)| 852 (100%) | | Level 2 | 47 (55%) | 38 (45%) | 85 (100%) | | Level 3 | 16 (48%) | 17 (52%) | 33 (100%) | | TOTAL | 619 (52%)| 581 (48%)| 1200 (100%) |

In Table 10 police actions varied significantly between men and women who were living together or separate. Police were more likely to arrest when they were living together than when separate, perhaps because men were more likely to be present when they attended. Outcomes following arrest were strongly associated with living arrangements. Release within hours after arrest was significantly more likely if the man and woman were living together and, if there were further proceedings, these were more likely to be for Breach of the Peace. Criminal charges were more likely if the couple was separated, which suggests that more serious offences were being committed against women who were separated at the time of the attendance. Arrest occurred more often when living together than when separate (p.\<0.05), while outcomes following arrest were strongly associated with living arrangements (p.\<0.001).

Tables 9 and 10 provide evidence that the reduction in repeat attendance was not the result of women separating from violent men and also that separation is associated with assaults and damage leading to arrest and criminal charge. The project does not provide evidence on how effective separation is in reducing life threatening or serious assaults, but given the differences between the men, suggested by the higher rates of criminal charges, it could be that if these women had stayed there would have been more repeat attendance and even more serious injuries.

Table 10: Police actions by living arrangements\*

| Police action | Together | Separate | Total | |--------------------------------------|----------|----------|--------| | Arrest and release within hours | 179 (63%)| 107 (37%)| 286 (100%) | | Arrests resulting in breach of the peace | 46 (60%) | 31 (40%) | 77 (100%) | | Arrests resulting in criminal charges | 41 (29%) | 98 (71%) | 139 (100%) | | Total arrests | 266 (53%)| 236 (47%)| 502 (100%) | | Total attendances | 899 (48%)| 971 (52%)| 1870 (100%) |

- Arrest occurred more often when living together than when separate (p.\<0.05), while outcomes following arrest were strongly associated with living arrangements (p.\<0.001).

This project does not provide information on whether women who were living together or separately had been doing so between attendances. What is known is that at the time of the attendance women were or were not living with their abusers. Interviews with women tell us that many women go back and forth in an effort to make their marriages or partnerships work. Many women return to Women’s Aid and other emergency housing for immediate assistance on more than one occasion before separating permanently. Section 4: Impact of the Model on Providers and Users

Police

Group discussions were carried out towards the end of 1997 with four patrol groups and individual interviews were conducted with one-half of the Beat Managers in mid-1997. While officers were progressively improving in the implementation of the programme, new officers took up posts at Killingbeck throughout the year. Towards the end a substantial minority had not received the pre-project training and patrol officers could be unaware of the project and therefore of its strategies.

It became apparent that on-going training and more continuous communication of outcomes was necessary for the project to be fully implemented and to continue. Introducing even relatively small changes in areas of work that traditionally are undervalued, especially when new responses are required, can result in anxiety, defensiveness, and minimal commitment. It is to the credit of all Killingbeck officers that while these views were expressed, in practice officers adapted and progressively implemented the model. The Domestic Violence Officers, backed up by senior officers, continuously assisted their colleagues with information and support.

Patrol groups

In the group discussions officers expressed interest in receiving training that made links between new legislation and its role in attending domestic violence calls, for example, the Protection from Harassment Act (1997).

The patrol groups said that when attending domestic violence calls they carried out the Force policy of arresting where possible and always ensured the safety of the women and children. In addition they frequently gave advice on separation and injunctions, and spent time talking to the women and men separately.

Regarding new interventions, several specific issues were raised. Officers questioned the value of Police Watch, especially when taking place early in the morning or late at night. The lack of face-to-face contact with women meant that Police Watch had no obvious outcome for the officers who could feel their actions were ineffectual. Several patrol groups suggested extending Police Watch to include knocking on doors to check on the woman’s situation and some officers had done so. Feedback from women attended provided officers with the knowledge that Police Watch could be effective.

Many officers had received requests for clarification of attendances not logged on the Domestic Violence Index (DVI). This could cause considerable anxiety; by implication the officers’ judgements and assessments were in question. Officers could say the problem lay elsewhere, e.g. with Area Control Room operators who fail to ‘write off’ correctly. Informing officers of improvements in recording rates and consistent managerial monitoring of individual performance is essential to overcome these problems.

**Beat Managers**

Beat Managers were given a new task involving new working practice. During the interviews they expressed views on the visits, the preparation for this work, and on the project itself. Beat Managers had not received any specific training on how to conduct visits at Level 2 and their concerns partly arise from this.

‘Cold calling’ was a problem mentioned by most officers. The only information available prior to the visit was limited details and generalised comments, such as ‘both parties advised’ taken from the DVI. Officers feared that ill-informed visits appeared unprofessional and, without adequate information, the situations could be potentially dangerous.

Specialist training on how to introduce Cocoon Watch was thought necessary. Some officers saw the women and men together which hindered women’s ability to talk freely about the violence or discuss Cocoon Watch openly. One officer explained that while he was not a social worker, social skills were necessary to carry out Beat Manager visits.

Consistency in implementation remained an issue. There was good practice. One officer asked to be informed of all domestic violence attendances on his beat and would visit women even before a request had been made. Another explained that he would give information on other agencies and would leave a card with his telephone number. However, other requests were returned by sergeants when officers were on holiday saying the visits could not be made. Some officers felt the visits were not their responsibility and that the Domestic Violence Officer (DVO) should undertake these calls.

**Preparation**

The initial training was seen as an introduction to the project only. Several officers commented on the lack of preparation for what was considered to be ‘extra work’.

The guidelines on how to introduce Cocoon Watch could be seen as inadequate. One officer who attended a woman with the DVO said he learned more from that visit than at any other time. This suggests that some form of ‘apprenticeship’ training could be effective. The project

Diverse views were expressed about the project. There were officers who undertook their visits with commitment and some success, while others expressed reluctance. This seemed to be partly the result of inadequate training and partly the expression of a work culture that fails to empathise with women.

Officers had a number of reservations, some of which had been anticipated and were addressed in the initial training. But even so, a majority of the interviewed officers remained concerned that the project failed to acknowledge that women also were aggressive and that Cocoon Watch was not always warranted. One officer thought that visiting ‘lonely’ women could be misinterpreted. Others felt that visiting women might cause further violence and suggested that women attend the police station as an alternative. Although officers were making progressively more visits at Level 2, and doing so successfully, these fundamental views continued to require attention.

Scepticism was expressed about the continuation of the project and concern about the false hopes raised by this and short term initiatives generally. ‘This is just something else we are promising to deliver. What about 12 months from now?’

While the standard of implementation improved over the year, giving rise to progressive improvements in the policing of domestic violence, these interviews illustrate the importance of continued training, managerial monitoring and support, and communication. Some Beat Managers and patrol group officers felt they were not kept informed adequately about the progress of the project. Without more input, they could not judge its success, but they were aware that the number of attendances for domestic violence had not declined. Clarifying the criteria for judging success and providing data on achievement of necessity awaited the outcome of this evaluation.

Social and welfare agencies

Agency staff were asked about their work, their involvement with the project, with women experiencing domestic violence, and the impact of the project on the agency. Agencies varied between those with a focus on women as victims of domestic violence and those with a focus on offenders. Monthly referrals to these agencies varied between 30 to one or two.

Although the majority had met the DVO during 1997, few regarded the project as having increased the liaison between themselves and the police. There were a variety of reasons for this; an on-going relationship with the police was already in place, or a focus on specific crimes, or a location in other West Yorkshire Divisions limited this possibility. A known contact at Killingbeck did, however, make liaison easier and provided the opportunity to learn of systems and procedures. The greatest progress in improved liaison was made with the other criminal justice agencies.

Most of the social and welfare agencies had contact with women from the Killingbeck area during 1997. Their clients’ comments on the police, although mixed, shared a similar concern with the lack of consistency in police practice. Some officers were perceived as sensitive and helpful while others were viewed as negative and unsupportive of women’s situations. “The changing police attitude is helpful but individual officers are very different - some good and some bad”.

Suggested changes in police practice that would improve the project for women included greater inter-agency consultation; more time talking to women; more in-depth training on domestic violence; better promotion of the project in the community; an improvement in evidence gathering so that the prosecution did not rely exclusively on women’s evidence; improved processes so information on bail is given to women, and they are made aware of court appearances and outcomes.

There was concern that separate West Yorkshire Divisions were implementing selective aspects of the Killingbeck project. This results in uneven service delivery within West Yorkshire and creates problems for agencies. Several social and welfare agencies thought the police should take a more pro-active role in attending fora for the discussion of domestic violence issues, including the need to link rape and domestic violence rather than treat each in isolation. Sharing information between agencies could benefit police, other agencies and the women by, for example, leading to speedier investigations for re-housing purposes or in countering bail applications.

The project was a welcomed initiative, although introduced with rather less inter-agency consultation than was hoped for, and seen as a progressive move by the Force. Uneven service delivery remained an issue.

The women

A random sample of 47 women was interviewed after receiving Level 1, or 2, or 3 interventions on police actions at the time of attendance, the project interventions, and improvements in police service for women. Women’s assessments of the impact of police actions and men’s behaviours on their lives were the focus of interviews that took place either at home or by telephone and when their abusers were not present. Police actions at attendances

Women either at the beginning of a sequence of calls for police attendance or who did not require another were more positive about police actions than women who had a longer experience of repeat attendance. This is to be expected as the behaviour of men is changed positively for a larger proportion of women at Level 1 than at higher entry Levels.

Women at Level 1 were positive about the police responses at the time of attending and for over one-half this was the first time they had called the police. At Levels 2 and above the majority of the interviewed women were not impressed with the first police attendance. While some women moved from Level 1 to higher levels during the year, many women had experienced longer periods of domestic violence. Specific complaints were that the police either spent too little time with them or were not prepared to find the men who had left the scene. Some women with a history of domestic violence commented that police responses had generally improved over time as they were less dismissive of the incident as ‘another domestic’.

Positive responses included arresting the men. This was stressed by Level 1 women who saw arrest as a major disincentive to men’s behaviour. The realisation that domestic violence could result in arrest, even without a court appearance, was said to shock a number of men, particularly when the men were employed or concerned about their wider families becoming aware of their violence. Women at Levels 2 and 3 added that a strong verbal warning of arrest could be a disincentive. The power of these warnings was diminished, however, if they were not implemented on subsequent police attendances.

Implementation of the project interventions

Letters

The letters were seen as confirmation of police concern and continued involvement; they made women feel less isolated and therefore less vulnerable.

The information cards included with the letters were also viewed positively and, although hardly any of the women interviewed called the agencies listed, the majority of women kept the cards ‘handy’ for future reference. Many of the women at Levels 3 and 4 had already contacted several of the agencies.

Letters to the men were viewed by the Level 1 women as effective. They acted as a formal condemnation of domestic violence by a public authority and they also demonstrated the ability of the police to monitor past and future attendances. Women who received Level 2 interventions were less convinced of the effect of these letters, describing how the men dismissed them. Women who received Levels 3 and 4 interventions had little recollection of men receiving letters. This probably reflects the greater percentage of women living separately at this stage.

**Beat Manager visits, Domestic Violence Officer visits and Cocoon Watch**

Visits by Beat Managers and the Cocoon Watch intervention were seldom recalled by women at Level 2 despite the monitoring records showing that both had been implemented. At Levels 3 and 4 there were mixed recollections of visits from the Beat Manager and/or Domestic Violence Officer, although the DVO visit was more likely to be recalled. Those who did recall the visits valued the advice and actions: this included implementing Cocoon Watch, contacting other agencies or just spending time listening to the women and giving advice on injunctions and solicitors.

**Police Watch**

Several women said they were aware of the Police Watch patrols although the monitoring records showed none had been implemented. Police Watch was highlighted as an intervention that increased the women’s sense of safety, both for the women themselves and for their children. One woman who received Police Watch said, ‘the bit that helped me most was the letter about surveillance. I really believe that had a big impact on him. He doesn’t like to be locked up.’ The sight of a police car was often attributed to the project and served to further the women’s confidence in the police. On occasions the men were reported to have observed police cars and to have been shocked at their presence.

The intervention with the least personal contact, Police Watch, attracted some of the most positive comments. Police Watch did not require the woman to choose or make a decision which the man might become aware of and use against her. The patrols were seen as a form of protection carried out by the police, rather than relying on the woman or her neighbours and other supporters; that is, someone in a position of power and authority was acting on her behalf without her intervention. Women who believed, incorrectly, that Police Watch was being implemented might be expressing women’s desire that an external authority take responsibility for curtailing the man’s violence. Police Watch, presented in letters as a possibility, was re-interpreted so that any passing police car could be seen as there to support the woman. Police service improvements

Consistency of service delivery was regarded as crucial if the men were to take any notice of police actions. For example, releasing a man on conditional bail twice, despite his breaching the first bail conditions; or warning a man that further attendance would result in arrest and then repeating the warning on two subsequent attendances, only served to undermine the message the women and men received concerning the seriousness with which the police treated domestic violence.

Issues identified by women:

- consistency of service delivery;
- rapid response to women’s calls;
- support for the victim through giving a verbal warning to the man. This may be the first time anyone has said his behaviour is unacceptable;
- officers should not say, ‘there is nothing else we can do’;
- officers should follow up information given by women on where men can be found, i.e. ‘three houses down the street’;
- officers should give more information to women when attending; and,
- the Crown Prosecution Service should place less reliance on the women when men are prosecuted – this has implications concerning the improvement of evidence gathering procedures.

The issues raised by the qualitative interviews point to the over-riding importance of long term commitment to this repeat victimisation programme. Raising standards to the point where total consistency is achieved could not be obtained in one year. This project, however, demonstrates that progressive, measurable improvements, month on month, can be achieved and that these are valued by service users and other agencies. Section 5. Why does the model work?

Overview of the programme achievements The main achievements of the programme are:

• reduced repeat victimisation; • increased number of single attendances; • increased time interval between attendance; • identified systematically chronic offenders; • reduced chronic offenders; • encouraged women to ask for assistance; • encouraged the supporters of women to seek assistance for her; • identified factors associated and not associated with repeat victimisation; • established who is at risk of requiring repeat attendance; and, • began career profiling of men.

The four major operational elements identified as basic to the model were implemented over the year. These are key in understanding why the model works.

• equal focus on the victim and offender; • involvement of all officers; • inter-agency involvement and greater inter-agency communication and co-ordination; and, • low additional resource implications.

Implementation issues Successful implementation of repeat victimisation initiatives require team-work, effective management, clearly detailed procedures and processes, and careful attention to recording practices. In this project some of the issues in achieving comprehensive and coherent implementation of the domestic violence repeat victimisation model were dealt with through advance planning, while others, being unanticipated, arose over the year. Trouble-shooting was a feature of the daily implementation of the model in order to achieve full recording of attendance and the orderly delivery of all the interventions. Because the design of the project was to implement new procedures, any issue or problem that affected its operation also affected the research and vice versa.

Monitoring

Failure to log police attendances accurately has major implications for the management of resources and the delivery of a public service. When compared with the widely used paper systems for recording domestic violence in many Forces, the West Yorkshire Police have a sophisticated system, but the project discovered that there was a 50% under-recording level. The operational implication of non-recording significant proportions of attendances, including a tendency not to record those that involved criminalised activity, is that the use of police resources cannot be accurately identified or monitored. This reduces the level of service available to women who require police assistance as it encourages the belief amongst police officers that domestic violence is insignificant in volume and its repetition is of little consequence. It can be argued that attention given to improving recording practices, in and of itself, can begin the process of heightening awareness of the seriousness of domestic violence as a resource and as a criminal issue.

Resources

The three-tiered model is cost effective. With over 2,000 attendances a year, the primary costs are two domestic violence officers and a clerk to implement operational procedures. Its continued application will eventually remove Level 2 and level 3 entrants from the system which is highly relevant to the efficient use of resources. Level 1 entrants require the least resources, Level 2 more and Level 3 the most. Any Force introducing this model initially will have entrants at Levels 2 or 3, and resource savings will be made by their reduction and eventual elimination.

While the project involved minimal additional resources, it did require a new understanding of police responsibilities in relation to domestic violence and the development of internal systems to ensure these were carried out. Organisationally speaking, the project is demanding but in line with current policy on responding to crime and disorder in the community. It has proven itself to be a successful crime prevention strategy, with a positive impact on reducing uneven service delivery to victims and offenders. As reporting rates by women and their supporters is low, in order for Killingbeck or any Force that adopts this model fully to reap its benefits it should replace current working practices and be sustained indefinitely. This project demonstrates progress can be made in reducing repeat victimisation in domestic violence through systematic and progressive police interventions. The evaluation established that early intervention reduced repeat attendances, while interventions at Levels 2 and 3 increased the time between repeat attendances. Some associated variables were identified or eliminated as significant.

**Future directions in research**

The project also demonstrates that we are only at the beginning of developing effective programmes based on risk assessment and career profiling. Although previously attended, police officers are unable to identify which women will be seriously injured or killed prior to these devastating outcomes. The factors available to this study do not fully explain why repeat victimisation does or does not occur. There are other factors of significance that can only be established by further work on repeat victimisation and domestic violence. One valuable approach would be further research on chronic offenders in order to further develop criminal career profiles and more detailed intervention models.

The full implication of staying together or separating in stopping or encouraging violence cannot be tested statistically by this data set. Questions of interest include: are women who move away living with the most difficult men? Table 10 suggests this may be so and a common finding of research on domestic violence is that women are more likely to move away as the intensity and frequency of assaults increase and also that moving away can lead to this outcome. There are other reasons, however, that may be decisive in living arrangement outcomes; in particular, whether women think their children are being adversely affected by the man’s violent behaviour and the level of support that can be offered to women.

The question, does it matter if the interventions are altered? remains to be explored. Further research altering early interventions to demotivate men and to ensure the safety of women could be pursued, while retaining the four major operational elements of the Killingbeck project. The effectiveness of each major intervention at the differing levels could be studied.

The results of the evaluation of this model of responding to domestic violence repeat victimisation could be compared with other models based on different major operational elements currently in place in other Forces.

Given that current policing priorities are influenced by Key Performance Indicators, it would greatly assist a more pro-active approach if domestic violence were defined as a crime of significant concern. This requires a combination of a national strategy on domestic violence and local partnerships. The Crime and Disorder Act requires local authorities and the police to address domestic violence. Traditionally domestic violence is perceived as too resource intensive, given other demands on policing, no matter how small the resources involved. This can be remedied by a continuing Governmental lead that recognises the large volume of police and associated work involved in responding to domestic violence and the harm domestic violence does to women, children and family life. References

Abu Bakar, Rizam, *Multivariate Survival Analysis for Split Populations with Application to Patterns of Domestic Violence*, PhD thesis, University of Bradford, submitted 1998.

Anderson, David; Chenery, Sylvia and Pease, Ken (1995) *Biting Back: Tackling Repeat Burglary and Car Crime*, Police Research Group, Crime Detection and Prevention Series, Paper 58. London: Home Office.

Bridgeman, Cressida and Sampson, Alice (1994) *Wise After the Event: Tackling Repeat Victimisation* A report by the National Board of Crime Prevention. London, Home Office.

Bunday, Brian and Kiri, Victor (1992) ‘Analysis of censored recidivism data using a proportional hazards-type model’, *The Statistician*, 41, pp. 85-96.

Cohen, L.E. and Felson, M. (1979) ‘Social Change and Crime Rate Trends: A routine activity approach’, *American Sociologic Review*, 44, pp. 588-608.

Farrell, Graham and Pease, Ken (1993) *Once Bitten, Twice Bitten: Repeat Victimisation and its Implications for Crime Prevention*, Police Research Group, Crime Prevention Unit, Paper 46. London: Home Office.

Hanmer, Jalna and Saunders, Sheila (1993) *Women, Violence and Crime Prevention* Aldershot, Gower.

Lloyd, Sam; Farrell, Graham and Pease, Ken (1994) *Preventing Repeated Domestic Violence: A Demonstration Project on Merseyside*, Police Research Group, Crime Prevention Unit, Paper 49. London: Home Office.

Mayhew, Pat; Aye Maung, Natalie and Mirrlees-Black, Catriona (1993) *The 1992 British Crime Survey* London: HMSO; Home Office Research Study 132.

Tilley, Nick (1995) *Thinking About Crime Prevention Performance Indicators*, Police Research Group, Crime Detection and Prevention Series, Paper 57. London: Home Office. Appendix 1

Recording domestic violence attendances

The Domestic Violence Index (DVI) includes incidents between adults, children and parents; siblings; intra-family disputes; neighbour disputes; same-sex couples; ex-boyfriends assaults on women’s current boyfriends; current or ex-husbands, common-law husbands or boyfriends and their female partners and vice versa. The database is also used to record racial incidents.

The DVI is a double-entry system of recording; an in-coming call is automatically logged on the computerised management information system, while updating the DVI requires an Area Control Room (ACR) operator to open the system and enter the relevant data. The decision to update the DVI is primarily the responsibility of the officer attending the call; often this is the result of an attendance being FIN-coded with a ‘domestic’ code number. The ACR operator can also prompt an officer when a call appears relevant.

When the Killingbeck project began the DVI logging rate was checked in order to locate attendances that had not been transferred to the DVI. A daily manual check of all calls received at Killingbeck was undertaken and all attendances that appeared to be ‘domestic’ and relevant to the project, irrespective of their final codes, were cross-checked with the DVI. The number of attendances not logged on the DVI was greater than the 10% drop-out rate predicted from earlier work when the number of calls FIN-coded domestic were compared with those entered on the DVI. The check of all calls revealed that only 50% of attendances were allocated a domestic FIN-code when attendances were finalised.

The implications for obtaining complete records are given in Table 11. This shows that the probability of obtaining a correct logging rate for two attendances drops from 81% when the recording rate is 90% to 25% when it is 50% and is even lower for subsequent attendances within a sequence. There are major implications for research on repeat victimisation when the recording reliability is as low as 50%. It means that one-half of women attended a second time will appear to be either completely new or first time attendances and 75% of women attended a third time will appear to be new, first or second time attendances and so on with higher level attendances. Over time, however, this major problem can be overcome through systematic and sustained effort to ensure every attendance is recorded.

The daily cross-checking of the calls received in the Division was time-consuming. A complex process was then undertaken to ensure non-recorded attendances were entered on the DVI: all likely incidents were referred to an Inspector for a final decision on their DVI entry. Many of the attendances required clarification from

[\\text{Binomial model. See Appendix 2}] the attending officer before a decision could be made. The new details were then sent to the Area Control Room to be logged on the DVI. This process took time and many attendances that were eventually entered on the DVI were six weeks or more beyond the attendance date and so did not receive any project interventions. With consistent managerial monitoring, however, the time taken for verification began to improve.

A similar exercise was then necessary on the 1996 pre-project data. As officers were unable to supply clarifications on attendances this far back in time, the researcher made the decision on those calls that required verification of domestic violence codes. The same criteria were used for identifying attendances requiring verification and, given the experience with returned forms, the same approaches were used in decision-making. This work, undertaken early in 1997, suggested that almost one-half (49%) of the attendances to domestic incidents were not being logged on the DVI. This effectively doubled the projected number of attendances for 1997; from an estimated total of approximately 900 to 2,000.

During 1997 the non-recording rate on the DVI decreased from 50% to 20%. Even with intensive follow-up it was not possible to reduce this percentage further. While the project increased awareness of officers and Area Control Room staff, many of the queried attendances could not be clarified or they were deemed irrelevant; many of the requests for clarification were never returned. However, during 1997 the number of attendances doubled as anticipated and a total of 2,163 attendances were made and logged on the DVI. This does not represent an increased work-load for officers as they were already attending this number of incidents, rather it represents an increase in awareness of the amount of time and resources required for this area of policing.

### APPENDIX 1

| Number of attendances for domestic violence | Recording rate 90% | Recording rate 50% | |-------------------------------------------|---------------------|---------------------| | 2 | 81.0% | 25.0% | | 3 | 72.9% | 12.5% | | 4 | 65.6% | 6.3% | | 5 | 59.0% | 3.1% | | 6 | 53.1% | 1.6% | | 7 | 47.8% | 0.8% | | 8 | 43.0% | 0.4% | | 9 | 38.7% | 0.2% | | 10 | 34.9% | 0.1% | The one systematic error was the failure of officers to record domestic attendances which included a specific crime. In 1997, 10% of the arrests made at attendances were to incidents not logged on the DVI. When arrest occurred, if the offender was released or sent to court for Breach of the Peace, 5% were not logged on the DVI, and when arrest resulted in criminal charges, 18% were not. This suggests that where a crime code can be ascribed to an attendance this over-rides the use of a domestic FIN-code even though multiple codes are permitted.

This DVI logging failure is inherent in a double-entry system of recording where human error and time-pressure can intervene before an attendance is logged on a second system. A precise and unambiguously worded definition of 'domestic' is also needed if consistency in logging is to be established. For example, only some telephone threats were logged while others were dismissed as inappropriate. The tendency to allocate one FIN-code out of the five Force codes allowed meant that only the aspect of an incident that assumed greatest importance for the officer was coded. The view that domestics are trivial leads to the greater likelihood of their being recorded on the DVI, while the domestic context of criminalised actions is more likely to be ignored and these attendances not recorded on the DVI. This view and the actions that flow from it remain issues for operational policing. Appendix 2

Developments in Statistical Analysis

This section is designed to provide a general indication of the nature and scope of the statistical analyses adopted during this project and the probabilistic models applied. Most of these analyses are novel to the research area of repeat offending, specifically within the context of domestic violence. Indeed, some of the techniques applied lie at the leading edge of statistical research and have only recently been developed within an on-going PhD programme. It is not intended to give full mathematical derivations of these techniques, but if required then details can be supplied through the Director of the Research Centre.

The fundamental probabilistic model which is routinely applied to repeat victimisation is that based on the binomial distribution. This distribution is implicit in the earlier work of Farrell and Pease (1993), and indeed that of Tilley (1995). Within the context of domestic violence, it can be used to investigate incompleteness of the Domestic Violence Index (DVI) records for individual victims. When attempting to extrapolate from an incomplete DVI record back to the possible total number of reported assaults, the less well-known negative binomial model has been applied. This model permits estimates to be constructed of the number of assaults which have been omitted from the DVI due to administrative error.

Within these studies, the binomial model lies behind the inter-level transitional probabilities. At any level of intervention, the programme may prove totally successful and the offender will never require re-attendance, otherwise re-offending is seen to take place. These mutually exclusive outcomes provide the usual "success" and "failure" scenarios of the Bernoulli trials on which the binomial model is based. The significance of observed differences in these transitional probabilities is investigated using the conventional Chi-squared goodness-of-fit tests for association.

Most of the novelty of statistical analysis has been introduced through the application of Survival Analysis. This is a heavily modified version of English Life Tables, which describe "non-specific" human survival in England and which are updated every 10 years following a national census. Within these domestic violence studies, the primary response variable is taken as the "survival" time; that is the period of time which elapses between an appropriate intervention and a (possible) future repeat attendance. If a repeat attendance is required within the time frame of the study then it is said that we have an observed failure time; otherwise the failure time is said to be right censored. Such studies represent a sophisticated version of the "time-course of repeat domestic violence". In simple terms, a survival function describes how a cohort of offenders on the programme of intervention diminishes over time, as particular men "fail" by re-offending. It is often assumed that initially these survival functions begin at 1 (the entire cohort) and decline over time until eventually they tend to 0 (everyone re-offends eventually). Such functions can be estimated using both observed and censored failure times using the Kaplan-Meier model or Product-Limit (P-L) Estimation. The theory in this area is well established and a derivative of the survival function is the "hazard rate", which describes the conditional rate at which failures occur over time (the analogy here with the "time-course of repeat domestic violence" is quite strong). In fact, the hazard rate can be used to derive the survival function and vice versa.

Most advanced statistical packages now contain an option to fit proportional hazards models in a routine fashion. These procedures represent a significant advance on the Product-Limit Survival Model, in that they recognise that not every domestic violence incident is identical. Additional information such as the ages of the offender and victim, and whether they live apart or together etc. can be considered as factors to determine if they can possibly influence repeat attendance by systematically lengthening or reducing survival times. Only those factors which are deemed to be significant are selected in a stepwise procedure. These selected factors are associated with a coefficient, whose sign indicates the direction of the adjustment and whose magnitude indicates the degree of adjustment. These adjustments are made to the hazard rate in a multiplicative way and consequently the method is referred to as the proportional hazards model. These selected factors permit scenarios to be constructed in which the intervention process (at each level) is predisposed to succeed (or fail).

The proportional hazards model described above is still based on the fundamental principle that all individuals will eventually fail. In other words, intervention can only delay repeat attendance and not eradicate it. This premise is alien to the concept of rehabilitation within recidivism, in which we assume that the study population is "split" between those offenders who will never again re-offend (infinite failure times) and those who will eventually require repeat attendance. Nevertheless, in a recent study, Bunday and Kiri (1992) claimed that the proportional hazards model worked well in the analysis of Home Office recidivism data, in spite of the fact that they assumed that all members of the research population would "fail" at some point in the future. The Killingbeck analysis is based on a more realistic split-population proportional hazards survival model using especially developed computer software. This software has been written to address all the issues of factor selection for proportional hazards as well as estimating the proportion of the population of offenders who will never again resort to physical violence to resolve a domestic dispute (Abu Bakar, unpublished). Appendix 3

Factors in domestic violence career profiling and risk assessment

Figure 5 presents the eight factors collated during the project period which were used for further statistical analysis. These relate to the man’s history of violence both before and during the project period; the relationship between the man and the woman; the residential areas of women and men; police action at the attendance; the completeness level of the project interventions.

- History of violence has two factors. The first, pre-project attendances, differentiates between men with and without DVI records of attendances by police prior to the project. The second is multiple or single attendances during the project to differentiate between those men who entered the project for a first-time at Level 2 or above and those men who had progressed to Level 2 and/or Level 3 from an earlier intervention level.

- Relationship between victim and offender has two factors. The first is age difference between men and women and the second is whether they were living together or separately at the time of the police attendance.

- Residential areas has two factors. The first is the beat area in which the offender lived, ‘offender’s beat’, and the second is the beat area in which the victim lived, ‘victim’s beat’. The twenty-one beat areas within the Killingbeck Division were pooled into three categories: high-, medium- and low-level crime areas for both factors.

- Police action and men’s responses has one factor, arrest or non-arrest by the police on attendance. A second proposed factor, use of violence against the police, could not be used because of small numbers. Only 23 of the 1200 men attempted to use violence against the police.

- Project interventions has one factor. The attendances that received full or partial interventions were divided into complete or incomplete interventions.

Level 1 factors

At Level 1 three factors were identified as statistically significant, at Level 2 none, and at Level 3 four. The explanation for these differences is that there was sufficient commonality between men in Level 1 and also in Level 3 for some factors to emerge, and insufficient commonality between the men at Level 2 for this to occur. At Level 1 the three factors identified as statistically significant were pre-project attendances, arrest, and victim’s beat.

- **Pre-project attendance.** Approximately a quarter of Level 1 entries had a recorded attendance prior to the previous 12 months before their entry into the project and these were sufficient for this factor to be chosen. It is the consistency of the behaviour of this cohort of men, i.e. their re-attendance, that led to pre-project attendance being identified as significant in predicting re-offending. This is a well-known association.

- **Arrest or non-arrest.** Arrest was chosen because men who were arrested were likely to require another attendance. Arrest increases the risk of re-attendance by 51%. This indicates that the men being arrested are those most likely to be repeat offenders. Arrest is not the cause of repeat attendance. It should be understood as a risk assessment factor indicating the likelihood of individual men committing further acts of violence. Repeat attendance and arrest is a statistical correlation. They share a trigger or causal factor, the man’s violence.

- **Victim’s beat.** Victims were more likely to live in beats defined as high crime than in those defined as medium or low, but moves from high to a lower crime beats decrease the risk of re-attendance. A single move from a high crime beat to a medium, or a medium to a low crime beat decreases the risk of re-attendance by 29%, while a double move from a high crime beat to a low crime beat decreases the risk of re-attendance by 51%. In reverse, a move from a low to a medium or a medium to a high crime beat increases the risk of re-attendance by 40%. These associations indicate that more socially deprived areas have higher repeat attendance with higher risks of further violence. The likely reason for these associations is that women at great risk will accept housing in any area in order to separate from the violent man. Local housing authorities should note the implication of re-housing vulnerable women and their children in high crime areas. Level 3 factors

At Level 3 four factors were identified as statistically significant: age difference, offender’s beat, pre-project attendances, and victim’s beat.

- Age difference. The most significant variable is age difference.

The average age of offenders was 33 years and victims 31 years. The difference between men’s and women’s ages on average was 1.7 years. Whilst there is no statistically significant difference between their ages at the three intervention levels, the average age at Level 3 was 35.5 years for men and 32.5 years for women; an increase of average age difference between the men and women to 3 years. The largest age disparities also were in Level 3.

Each year of age difference in both directions has a substantial impact on re-attendance. When the offender is older than the victim, the likelihood of re-attendance reduces by 5% per year difference between them. When the offender’s age is less than that of the victim the risk of re-attendance increases by 6% per year difference. For example, if the man is ten years older than the woman the risk of re-attendance is 42% lower than if they were the same age, and if he is ten years younger than the woman the risk of re-attendance is increased by 73%.

- Offender’s beat. At Level 3 men were living in lower crime areas than their victims. The identification of this factor shows that men were not moving from their homes because of their violence.

- Victim’s beat. By Level 3 women were leaving to live in less desirable locations in Leeds rather than stay with men who continued to occupy property in more desirable locations in the city. Rehousing in higher crime areas is one of the social penalties women and their children endure as a result of violence against them.

- Pre-project attendances. Men who entered the project at Level 3 were 69% more at risk of requiring another attendance than men who entered at Level 1 and progressed to Level 3. This indicates that the repeat victimisation interventions are reducing repeat attendance providing the offender receives intervention early in his career of domestic violence.

Factors that were not selected

Three factors were never identified as significant at any level: incomplete and complete interventions, living together or separately, single or multiple attendance during the project period. The implications for the model are: • complete and incomplete interventions. The implementation of incomplete or complete sets of interventions does not increase or decrease the risk of further attendance. This is related to the number of components; so that the elimination of any one does not invalidate the success of the programme. Greatest consistency was with delivery of letters to victims and to offenders at all levels. Intervention at Level 1 is the single most important action associated with a reduction in repeat attendance as a higher proportion of men do not require a repeat attendance. Interventions at Levels 2 and 3 increase the time intervals between the re-attendance which indicates that interventions at these levels reduce motivation rather than demotivate.

• another way of describing why this variable was not significant at any level is because it always contained degrees of completeness. It was assessed as incomplete if any one element was missing, such as not sending a letter because a man’s address was not known. The classification incomplete meant more interventions were implemented than were not, while complete meant all interventions were implemented. Only Level 0 entrants have a complete absence of interventions and Figure 3 and Table 8 demonstrate that Level 0 repeat attendance entries were significantly higher than for Level 1, although lower than Level 2 or 3.

• single or multiple attendance. Whether men had progressed to Level 2 or 3 or entered at Level 1, 2, or 3, did not appear to make a difference. This indicates that the interventions were effective with men with varying histories of domestic violence attendances and is further proof that the repeat victimisation model of interventions is making a difference in reducing repeat attendance.

• Living together or separate. Living arrangements were not found to be significant in relation to repeat attendance. This is further evidence that it is the repeat victimisation model of interventions that is making the difference in reducing repeat attendance and in increasing the time interval between requests for repeat attendances. RECENT POLICE RESEARCH GROUP AND POLICING AND REDUCING CRIME UNIT PUBLICATIONS:

Police Research Group Crime Detection and Prevention Series papers

88. The Nature and Extent of Light Commercial Vehicle Theft. Rick Brown and Julie Saliba. 1998.
89. Police Anti-Drugs Strategies: Tackling Drugs Together Three Years On. Tim Newburn and Joe Elliott. 1998.
90. Repeat Victimisation: Taking Stock. Ken Pease. 1998.
91. Auditing Crime and Disorder: Guidance for local partnerships. Michael Hough and Nick Tilley. 1998.
92. New Heroin Outbreaks Amongst Young People in England and Wales. Howard Parker, Catherine Bury and Roy Eggington. 1998.

Policing and Reducing Crime Unit Police Research Series papers

093. Brit Pop II: Problem-oriented Policing in Practice. Adrian Leigh, Tim Read and Nick Tilley. 1998.
094. Child Abuse: Training Investigating Officers. Graham Davies, Emma Marshall and Noelle Robertson. 1998.
095. Business as Usual: An Evaluation of the Small Business and Crime Initiative. Nick Tilley and Matt Hopkins. 1998.
096. Public Expectations and Perceptions of Policing. Russell Bradley. 1998.
097. Testing Performance Indicators for Local Anti-Drugs Strategies. Mike Chatterton, Matthew Varley and Peter Langmead-Jones. 1998.
098. Opportunity Makes the Thief. Practical theory for crime prevention. Marcus Felson and Ronald V. Clarke. 1998.
099. Sex Offending Against Children: Understanding the Risk. Don Grubin. 1998.
100. Policing Domestic Violence: Effective Organisational Structures. Joyce Plotnikoff and Richard Woolfson. 1999.
101. Pulling the Plug on Computer Theft. Paula Whitehead and Paul Gray. 1999.
102. Face Value? Evaluating the Accuracy of Eyewitness Information. Mark R. Kebbell and Graham F. Wagstaff. 1999.
103. Applying Economic Evaluation to Policing Activity. J.E. Stockdale, C.M.E. Whitehead and P.J. Gresham. 1999.